


The Last Rose of Cintra (has frost creeping up her thorns)

by and_a_dash_of_Angst



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Birthday, Found Family, Gen, Kaer Morhen (The Witcher), Soft Lambert (The Witcher), creepy thriller vibes, the wild hunt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:07:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29626791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_a_dash_of_Angst/pseuds/and_a_dash_of_Angst
Summary: uhhhhhhhhh. Ciri has a birthday. It doesn't go as you might expect.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Lambert
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14
Collections: The Witcher Flash Fic Challenge #016





	The Last Rose of Cintra (has frost creeping up her thorns)

**Author's Note:**

> so you know how the Wild Hunt is always heralded by all the plants in the area frosting over in TW3?

Ciri  _ usually _ managed to sleep longer and more restfully here at Kaer Morhen than anywhere else on the Continent, thanks to the knowledge that she was safe behind thick stone walls and her overprotective Witcher pseudo-family, not to mention being hidden deep in the near-unbreachable wilderness of the Blue Mountains.  _ Usually _ . Sometimes, however, she was rudely awoken at far-too-early o’clock in the morning by the sound of a commotion rising from somewhere else in the keep (like that time her Dadstiny had woken up in the middle of Lambert attempting to do terrible, terrible things to his beloved hair) or, if she was particularly unlucky (as it seemed she was this morning), by someone knocking impatiently at her door. Okay, the “impatient” part might be her fault, but really, if anyone was expecting her to wake up  _ quickly _ before the sun had managed to warm the icy mountain air that penetrated even this far behind Kaer Morhen’s walls, well. That was their problem.

After another few minutes of increasingly forceful knocks, Ciri forced herself to roll out of her warm pile of furs with a groan. Clearly she would have to get up and deal with whatever it was the witcher at her door (because, unless they had some unexpected guests she didn’t know about, she was the only non-witcher within several days’ travel) wanted, if only to save the poor ancient wood from finally crumpling under the now almost worryingly loud bangs. A scowl etched itself deeply across her face as she reluctantly shuffled over to the door and flung it open, greeting the fist that froze a scant few centimeters away from her face (where it had suddenly replaced the age-worn surface of the door it’s owner had been cruelly bludgeoning a moment before) with a fierce glare learned from the Lioness of Cintra at her fiercest. 

“FUCK!” Lambert leaned back in surprise at her sudden appearance.  _ Hah. That would teach him to knock so loudly he couldn’t hear her sleep-heavy steps less than a meter away. _ “Almost thought you were dead in there, sleeping beauty! What would you have done if I’d been some Nilfgaardian shitstain here to kidnap you?”

“Stabbed you. Still might, if you don’t have a good enough reason for waking me up so godsdamned early,” she growled in her best imitation of her Dadstiny’s most intimidating tone. Yes, she was aware that the effect was probably softened by the fluffy warg fur she had draped across her shoulders and the fact that she couldn’t keep her eyes open for longer than 5 seconds at a time. No, she did not give a single fuck.

“O-kay,” Lambert began sarcastically, taking another step back. “I figured the birthday girl would want to know about her special birthday breakfast before the big hungry witchers could eat it all up, but I guess I’ll wake Eskel up first next time I make those fancy Cintran sweet-rolls you-”

“You made  _ Honey Swirls?? _ ” The words hit her like a triple shot of caffeine. Before she could get past him and Dash all the way to the kitchen to guard her treasured pastries, however, Lambert gave an awkward cough and shifted, inadvertently (or not? You could never quite tell when it came to him) drawing attention to the arm that had remained hidden behind his back for the entire exchange. “What did you do?” She asked, unable to keep the dawning apprehension out of her voice.

“Hey, what’s with the suspicion? I haven’t  _ done anything _ but get up before even Vesemir stopped his snoring to make my favorite niece her favorite sweets and a bouquet of those new flowers Geralt planted.” He pulled said bouquet of rich crimson petals out from behind his back with an unnecessarily dramatic flourish and presented it to the stunned princess. After a long moment in which she could do nothing but stare at him in shock, he shrugged uncomfortably and started to withdraw the offering. “Did I get it wrong? Aiden said I should-”

“No, they’re lovely, I just. I guess I just didn’t expect such a sentimental yet impractical gesture from any of my Big Tough Wolves,” she snorted a bit as she pictured her uncles hunting down a handful of perfect flowers and restraining them with a pretty ribbon with all the seriousness they used when trapping Wyvern and werewolves. Noticing how red his face had gotten, she couldn’t help but push it a bit farther, dipping into a court-perfect curtsey and grinning sweetly up at him. “Thank you, Uncle Lambert, it was very sweet of you.”

She made sure to leave the door open while she set about finding a bottle or flask that wasn’t too full of toxic alchemy to use as a vase and arranging the bouquet proudly on the table in the center of her room, though she heard him flee in embarrassment a good minute before she was satisfied. Oh well, she was sure he’d give her  _ plenty _ more opportunities to tease him soon enough.

* * *

Sadly, despite her protests, Vesemir deemed that a birthday was no excuse for slacking off on training and chores, though she did notice she was assigned all the least-miserable tasks despite his usual unfailingly fair division of labor. If her Dadstiny also went a bit easier on her in training than he usually would, well, she wasn’t about to complain.

It was during one of those unusual breaks that they felt it; to Geralt, (and all the other witchers, as she would later discover,) it was most noticeable in the sudden trembling of their medallions. To Ciri, well, she wasn’t sure quite how to describe it, but it was sort of like the sensations normally produced by someone messing with her hair, except it came from the powerful protection wards she had helped Yennefer reinforce around the keep a few years ago. They all quickly gathered in the courtyard, swords in hand as they desperately tried to detect any sign of the apparent danger, but after an hour of nothing, they were forced to shrug it off as some strange natural phenomenon, perhaps related to the movement of the stars shifting the invisible currents of Chaos across the continent.

* * *

By the time they finally called it a day and set off for their separate rooms after several hours of celebratory drinking and Gwent after dinner, she had almost entirely forgotten about the strange incident from that afternoon.  _ Almost _ , but when she hugged her Dadstiny good night and finally stepped into her room (across the hall from his, of course), the prickling unease along her spine brought it all rushing back. At first she couldn’t see anything out of place, just her instincts screaming that something was  _ wrong _ , so she advanced cautiously into the room to investigate.

The flowers. Something about the flowers Lambert had given her earlier… _ was it just that she never kept flowers in her rooms anymore? Most likely- but no, something’s different. _

As she moved closer, she finally noticed the way the firelight was bouncing off the surface of the petals like they were covered in glass, and realized that the chill that had her shivering was no longer merely psychosomatic.  _ The flowers were covered in frost, in the middle of a fire-warmed room in the middle of summer _ .

Flashes of horses chasing her across frost-covered grass as she fled their inhuman riders in terror flashed behind her eyes, and she screamed. The piercing shriek rang through the empty, echoing halls of the abandoned school-fortress, only to cut off abruptly as a large armor-clad hand landed heavily on her shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry?   
> ~~no I'm not~~  
>  the hand either belongs to Eredin (or some other lesser Wild Hunt minion) and is about to be cut off, or it belongs to Geralt who heard Ciri screaming and immediately ran in to check on her.


End file.
